Tag: government
How to win on wages: lessons from Australia and abroad
This month’s national accounts show, relative to earnings, wages slumping to lowest on record. Compared to the rest of the developed world, Australia is now in record low territory when it comes to sharing the nation’s largesse with its workers....
Rowers’ Reprise: how Angus Taylor’s mates cleaned up without him
“Nothing to see here,” said Scomo, following misconduct allegations over Angus Taylor allegedly trying to influence Josh Frydenberg to weaken laws to escape prosecution by a company he part owns. Jommy Tee and Ronni Salt make another deep dive into...
Shine Energy: behind the push for a new coal-fired power station
“This ticks so many boxes,” an adamant George Christensen told Seven News. “Local jobs, indigenous self-empowerment, indigenous training, local jobs”. For an elated Herald Sun commentator, Andrew Bolt, it ticked the most important box of all, irritating “the greenies”. “I...
Australia’s Most Wanted: Rex Patrick and the Senate’s new power-block
Six people exercise extraordinary power in the current parliament. They are the Senate cross-benchers, senators whose votes are wanted, and courted, by both the Coalition government and the Opposition – to either pass laws or block them. Michael West looks...
Technologies of control and our right of refusal | Seeta Peña Gangadharan | TEDxLondon
Most of us don’t realise how much digital systems govern access to our basic public services, like education, health and housing. Even more terrifying is how much data is collected about us and used without our knowledge. In 2011, while...
Watergate: An ecosystem cultivated for sharks won’t support goldfish
Mismanagement of the Murray Darling Basin has now reached such farcical proportions, it’s hard not to be reminded of Mark Twain’s edict “Truth is Stranger than Fiction”. How did this level of ineptitude, cock-ups, rorts and cronyism flourish unchecked for...
Fact check: Employment in Australia is worse than you think
In case RMIT/ABC Fact Check have missed this, Alan Austin analyses the facts and refutes the claims by the Coalition that it has served workers well and is the better economic manager. VIRTUALLY THE entire developed world has enjoyed a...
Watergate: when two rights do make a wrong
The evidence is firming that the Government spent $80 million buying air, not water. Michael West reports. Serious questions have been aired by Channel Ten’s The Project that the Queensland government failed to decommission dams on the two farms at...
Barnaby Joyce, Angus Taylor and the $80 million question
“Labor, Labor, Labor, Labor, Labor”. This is a direct quote from the epic interview of Barnaby Joyce by Patricia Karvelas on ABC Radio last week. As is, “Labor, Labor, Labor, Labor”. Michael West reports on the unfolding #Watergate saga. Amid...
Big Four: inquiry into government consultancy binge gets buried
The inquiry into the federal government’s spendathon on government contracts, especially on that global elite of corporate welfare recipients, the Big Four audit firms, has been axed — because of the federal election, we are told. The paradox is that...
Barnaby Joyce, Angus Taylor, Australia and the Caribbean
It is extraordinary that the profit from Barnaby Joyce’s record payment for Australian water rights, an $80 million payment of taxpayers’ money, found its way to a company in the Cayman Islands which had been set up by Angus Taylor,...
Don’t let sneaky graphs fool you: minimum wages do not cost jobs
If this election is a referendum on wages, as Bill Shorten claims, then the minimum wage will be an issue. Alan Austin has examined the latest World Bank data. THE MINIMUM wage has been a divisive topic in many countries...
Whose Budget? Fill This Space
The Budget was never passed. Australia has no budget, but it has an election. And the money allocated last year starts to run out on July 1. It is the current Senate, not the new one, whatever that is, which...
Chinese frustration with Australia boils over, taking 5G Chinese ban to WTO
China-Australia relations are going to be a big issue this election, particularly in the light of Beijing taking Australia to the World Trade Organisation over the 5G ban. Politicians may try to ignore it, but they will eventually have to...
Tandou Can Do: double standards in water purchases in the Murray-Darling Basin
Are corporations profiteering from water licences with the help of politicians? Academic researcher, Triskele, continues the investigation into why scientific evidence was ignored in the #MurrayDarling catastrophe. In this instalment, Triskele focusses on Barnaby Joyce’s role as Water Minister in...
Australia’s growing debt explodes the myth that Libs are better economic managers
Yesterday, Scott Morrison said on announcing the election: “Labor cannot manage money”. John Menadue who served as head of Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet under both Whitlam and Fraser governments disagrees. It’s the Coalition, hidebound by an out-dated ideology...
Why the Swamp Gets It Backwards | Guest: Rep. Justin Amash | Ep 8
Rep. Justin Amash (MI-3) joins Matt Kibbe to talk about Twitter wars, his family’s immigration to the US, and how to deal with the tribal warfare going on in our country right now. The guys geek out on Friedrich Hayek...
Labor’s NBN plan: full-blown review plus immediate problems tackled
It doesn’t come as a surprise that Labor’s plan for the NBN starts with a full-blown technical and financial review of the NBN, as announced yesterday morning by the Shadow Minister for Communication, Michelle Rowland. Paul Budde, one of the...
Have Better Arguments, Be Better Citizens | Guest: Eric Liu | Ep 7
Citizen University's Eric Liu sits down with Matt Kibbe for an across-the-aisle discussion of liberty, equality, power, and responsibility, proving that we can disagree without being disagreeable. Subscribe to Kibbe on Liberty everywhere you get podcasts. #ericliu #mattkibbe #kibbeonliberty Read...
Dark Money and Scotch Whisky | Guest: Lawson Bader | Ep 6
Matt Kibbe gets pickled with so-called Dark Money ATM Lawson Bader, who explains why donor privacy is crucial to a functioning democracy. Subscribe to Kibbe on Liberty everywhere you get podcasts. #lawsonbader #mattkibbe #kibbeonliberty Read More
How did the ‘clever country’ end up with a $90 billion botched NBN?
The Coalition’s botched NBN is not just a costly technological failure, but a policy debacle that has cost Australia’s taxpayers billions of dollars, as well as contributing to the severe devaluation of a whole industry. Kim Wingerei reports. ON WEDNESDAY,...